Music Swap 2011

The last three summers, I’ve participated in the summer MetaFilter music swaps (2008 mix, 2009 mix, 2010 mix), and the time has come for me to do another one. You get randomly assigned to a group of 6 people, and then you make a mixed CD and send copies of it out to the other people in the group. Ideally, you should then get 5 mixed CDs back from the others. As of this writing, I have received one of the mixes to start, with lots of good music, and I’m sure I’ll be getting the others soon. I mailed mine out on the deadline of July 30 (beating the closing of the post office that day by 15 minutes or so), and I’m sure I’m not the only one who procrastinated a bit.

This year, I’m calling the mix “Sounds of Summer 2011.” It’s basically just a personal list of the music I’ve been listening to this summer. Below are images of the cover and back of the CD, and then a flash interface for listening to all the music. You can find the files themselves easily if you know where to look, but I will only link to one of the files directly, because I spent a bit of time translating the lyrics for Jag Kommer, a song by Veronica Maggio that’s been stuck in my head all summer. The transcribed and translated lyric is embedded in the mp3.

Like last year, I’m going to add a link to a zipped archive of the songs on Dropbox. That link will only be valid for a few weeks, and then I’ll take it down.

Some thoughts on these specific songs:

Indestructible – Robyn

I think I’ve had Robyn on all my mixes. She is a strong, independent artist who has some great music. I feel like her songs and the lyrics speak to me and my life pretty well, and this song in particular has been part of my “driving down the highway with the windows open, blasting music into the night” kind of summer (along with MK Ultra from Muse, which I decided not to include in the mix, but almost did).

Oh Jonny – Jan Delay

I’m not sure where this came from, to be honest. I may have heard the song on the Eurovision broadcast from Germany, maybe? Anyway, it really is a fun song, and I particularly like the uniquely-German types turns of phrase. Strangely, I was able to understand most of the song, despite it being a very long time – decades – since I last studied German.

All Of This – The Naked And Famous

This was a Hypemachine find in early 2011 – I heard this song and immediately bought the album, which I like a lot. I really enjoy the New Zealand electropop sound, and it’s nice to see NZ artists exploding onto a global stage, with some sounds that are different from US or European acts.

Bullets – Rebecca & Fiona

I was looking for something completely different on YouTube early this year, and came across a fan-made video for this song. I really liked the energy and the fun of the song, and it seemed like they were having so much fun with it. I can totally see myself as a teenager doing the same thing to a favorite song or band – lucky for me we had no such technology available, so I don’t have to be embarrassed by my silly dancing around to music eternally available on the web. 🙂

Suitcase – Standard Fare

I have the good fortune of palling around via chat and games with some nice people from the UK, and it was one of my friends there who shared this song with us at some point. I really like most of their music, and I’ve been listening to them on Spotify.

Jag Kommer – Veronica Maggio

I found this on the Swedish radio station called P3. While you can now listen to the broadcast directly online, I really miss the curated “New Swedish Music” list that they used to play online as “P3 Svea.” It kind of sucks, ’cause now I have to dig through a bunch of other stuff to get at the gems. But hey, when the gems are like this song, I guess it’s worth it. Seriously, I’m not sure why but this song really hit a chord with me.

Wicked Games – The Weeknd

The Weeknd have been sort of part of the overall consciousness for me of artists that are releasing music online, doing an end-run around the labels, and doing a good job of promoting themselves to an appreciative audience. I find this track in particular to be both incredibly dark and moody but also very earwormy, which is kind of distressing…

Short Change Hero – The Heavy

I needed a followup for Wicked Games, so I scoured my recent music acquisitions for a good fit. I collect music that I hear online and that speaks to me, so I’m not sure exactly why I bought this track. (I always buy the tracks if I can. I’ve spent a lot of money on music lately for some reason…) I think it was the background music for a game trailer of some sort, perhaps? Not sure. I like it a lot, though.

The Man Comes Around – Johnny Cash

How awesome is this track. I’ve never been a huge fan, but I go in spurts when I buy his music if I’m feeling in a particular mood. I caught a few bars of this song on some TV show (CSI, maybe?) while flipping channels, and played it maybe five times in a row that evening when I tracked down the song on my computer. It’s been coming up in my iPhone over and over since then, for some reason.

Alice is Dead – Hania Lee

I really like Hania Lee‘s work for games and web video, and I included another song of hers last year. So it was nice and surprising to hear this track from her in the title game (which was a fun little game too).

Manny & Meche – Peter McConnell

Keeping with the game vibe. This spring I actually had someone over at MefightClub link me the soundtrack for my favorite game ever – Grim Fandango. It’s a great soundtrack, and I had to include a song from it, so why not my favorite one.

The King of Wishful Thinking (Go West Cover) – Rizza Cabrera

I found Riz and her sister doing a Lady Gaga cover last year, and I really liked the sound of both of their voices. So I got a copy of her cover albums, and have been playing it now and then since. It’s nice and indie and soothing, and I like her version of this song.

Exile Vilify – The National

Returning to the game theme (which, I didn’t notice until now, is a huge theme of this mix), this is the featured song in the game Portal 2. I heard the song coming from a radio inside the game, and had to stop playing until I had tracked down the song and downloaded it. It puts me in an awesome mood, as I loved the game almost as much as I loved the first one.

Minecraft Everyday – Viktor Cepeda

I keep telling myself I need to fire up Minecraft again, but then I don’t. Hopefully, the Aporkalypse will be there waiting for me when I get around to playing again. In the meantime, I will listen incessantly to Viktor singing about pigs and cows pushing him into lava and his tools breaking…

Your Mind, Your Hell – Since Our First Guitar

No idea where this came from, but I like it!

Lose It – Austra

This came via another friend in the UK, who has great taste in music (according to me) and who I can always count on to send something surprising and wonderful my way. Like this song, which I can’t really get out of my head. Is it an angel singing? Maybe.

Please Turn – Little Dragon

I was reading a Swedish music blog (can’t remember which one) when I came across the name “Little Dragon” for a band that was supposed to be taking the US by storm. A Swedish band making good overseas is always nice, so I thought I would look for their music. Didn’t really care that much for the first album, but then I found a preview of their next one, which included this song that I liked. Hoping that they will do well with the new album.

Manboy – Eric Saade

So… Normally I’ll try to put a “hidden” track somewhere on the CD, just for fun. So what better than this track, which cracks me up every time I even think about it. 🙂

I hope you enjoyed the mix. Here is also a picture of the CD cover and CD as I was preparing to send them out to the other people in my swapset. I love using Lightscribe to put a label on the CD, makes it so much nicer. I also burned a data CD with the mp3 files, all fully tagged and with embedded artwork and other info (some with embedded lyrics), just because that’s how I would want it – it’s how I would be using the music anyway, so why not make it easy. The envelopes with the CDs included some cute scented foam stickers, so hopefully my swapmates will be met by a lovely fragrance upon opening them (the group was called “Whence Th’ Lovely Fragrance Wafting” so I thought it would be fun to allude to it somehow!)